I always thought of “countenance” as referring to one’s all-over bearing, and wasn’t even aware that some use it to refer to the “face” specifically. This seems to be a later connotation. Why people seem so focused upon the front of the head has always been a peeve of mine. So the Duggars would not like me.
Also, this cover-the-body nonsense gets me wondering how/why conservative Christians of the US and Europe reconcile their quite vocal annoyance with modest Islamic attire, which seems to do the same things for the same reasons.
On the intertubes quoting somebody’s post and appending “There, fixed that for you.” is typically considered fightin’ words(unless done for mutually-recognized humorous effect, and cleverly).
Unfortunately, the history of Abrahamic Monotheism is pretty much a wildly branching phylogenetic tree of assorted ‘prophets’ and reformers doing exactly that to the most-venerated-writings-and-practices of the guy behind them.
Right… these people have no real understanding of Islam and what they belief. They just buy into whatever their bigoted pastor/“alternative” Christian media/fox news tells them about it.
I’d argue it’s more about coupling faith with power, but YMMV. Religion can also be vectors for rebellion, justice, and liberation.
I’d definitely agree that there are other factors at work(it’s not hard to find members of religions with effectively zero overlap fighting; or members of religions that theoretically believe one another to be hellbound heresies totally ignoring that and getting along just fine); but in the presence of other risk factors, having a given text, prophet, historical site, etc. be Absolutely Seriously Important; but in mutually exclusive ways, does not do interfaith relations any good.
Scarce resources are a natural point of conflict, and religions that are heavily derived from one another unfortunately come with a ready-made shortage of certain salvation goods in a way that unrelated religions, or ones with laid back and syncretistic tendencies, don’t. As with any scarcity, violent conflict isn’t inevitable; but it doesn’t help.
If you were not in ATI, this short phrase will mean very little.
If you were in ATI, you probably remember the shopping mall exercise? You know, where we took the eye trap quiz, and then went to the mall (the entire quiverfull) to distinguish which eye traps lurked in the clothing of the women walking past us, and what those eye traps might communicate about their moral innards? Yes, we thought you might remember that one…
I’m glad that I was raised just this side of secular humanism.
It was also a decade of conformism when the social outcast in the middle who’d committed the faux-pas of carrying his book in a finger-and-thumb pinch grip would become the target of staring and mockery. Or so I hear from a friend.
This doesn’t strike me as creepy so much as a way to get women folk to stop thinking, and start worrying about things that don’t matter-- which I suppose is creepiness in a different form.
To answer your question about the dress code, at least when I went to the conferences back in the '90’s, the dress code was laid-out, specific, and strict for the “Apprenticeship Students”. (ATI-speak for teenagers, since “teenagers” is an unBiblical concept, lol) In ATI, “Apprenticeship Students” were ages 12-marriage. Even if a someone was 25 and unmarried, they were still pretty much treated like a teenager or child, and not as an adult, until they are married. At the conferences, the “adults” could dress as they wished, but modest dress (basically the same as what the apprenticeship students had to wear, but it could be other colors than navy and white) was STRONGLY encouraged. So in a way, it is more of a “behavioral norm” than a stated command. Of course, in an authoritarian culture which emphasizes the “Principle of Authority” there is really little difference between a suggestion and a command, when it comes from an authority figure. If you don’t conform, you are being “rebellious”. And the ATI leadership and Bill Gothard himself are definitely considered to be authorities over all the families in ATI.
The refernce to Itten’s color theory seemed particularly jarring. One little shred of reality that seems very out of place here. I mean, referencing the Bauhaus in a guide to conservative dress codes? I think that’s the weirdest thing in here.
